Sturgeon Bay departures brought to abrupt halt by ice
March 24, 08 by TheFleetIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
GLSW Exclusive
The best-laid plans were brought asunder by a stiff northerly wind and cold temperatures over the weekend, which stacked and re-froze thick ice on the bay of Green Bay, in western Lake Michigan.
By 11 AM, the lakes’ largest ship, the PAUL R. TREGURTHA, had departed Sturgeon Bay’s Bay Shipbuilding and was struggling against the ice in the shipping channel at Sherwood Point. The ARTHUR M. ANDERSON was moving out of her berth, and the EDGAR B. SPEER and JAMES R. BARKER were in the queue, getting ready to go.
And then the TREGURTHA became stuck in the ice.
The USCG Cutter MOBILE BAY was on-hand to assist with breaking the ships out of the ice, but it became quickly apparent that the ice breaking efforts the MOBILE BAY had completed throughout the past 72 hours in the bay of Green Bay, had been jammed shut and stubbornly refrozen by the recent turn in the weather.
Tug ERICA KOBASIC assisted the MOBILE BAY in breaking tracks northerly through the bay all afternoon and late into Sunday night. The MOBILE BAY spent much of their time attempting to break ice at Washington Island’s Boyer Bluff, reporting that it was “very tough, very very tough” and finally conceding to the KOBASIC that it might be better to route ships around the Boyers Bluff ice, transiting them farther north towards Little Bay de Noc, and then turn them easterly toward Rock Island Passage, to gain entry to Lake Michigan.
The MOBILE BAY and ERIC KOBASIC suspended ice breaking operations at 11:15 PM, and planned to resume their efforts again at 8:00 AM Monday.
In the meantime, several freighters remained stranded in the ice off Sturgeon Bay.
Although the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal and Lake Michigan was clear of ice, and seemingly a clear egress for the vessels departing Bay Shipbuilding, the water depth near Bay Shipbuilding is insufficient to turn the vessels. The waters on either side of the 200 ft. wide channel are also still covered by thick, non-navigable solid sheet ice. Additionally, the brisk northerly winds would have created a crosswind situation for the freighters, which are sitting high in the water while ballasted. Such conditions would have made transiting the three bridges through the city extremely difficult.
More ships are scheduled to depart Bay Shipbuilding on Monday.
The vessels are also attempting to beat a high pressure system which is causing winds to swing westerly, then southerly and increase to gale strength Monday night into Tuesday. Sixteen foot waves are forecasted for northern Lake Michigan on Tuesday, which are sufficient height to cause most sub-1000 ft. freighters to seek shelter in calmer waters along lee shores.
